This is actually the secondHot Air straw poll this month. The first one showed virtually the same results as this one, Sarah Palin crushing all comers, but the increasingly anti-conservative, anti-Palin website chose to spin some of her best results ever, as somehow a bad thing, and I was laughing so hard I simply couldn’t type a response to Patrick Ishmael’s drivel, and didn’t publish the results.

Here’s a link to that survey, you compare it with the latest, and find that Sarah’s support is once again stronger than ever. And, once again, Ishmael looked for an angle, so we get this nonsense in the new poll results:

The Approval results are in. Leading the pack when Presidential supporters are removed is Paul Ryan, followed by Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, John Bolton and Herman Cain.

Now Paul Ryan, whose budget plan is supported by Sarah …. she was the first to get on board …. is not a candidate for President, and has said in no uncertain terms that he will not be a candidate, and yet ….

Ishmael uses a plot device known as “average without presidential support” to create his little narrative. In other words, he bounces those who approve of a candidate, but do not support them for president, vs the ratings for the same candidates among those who do support them as a presidential candidate. This is how he is able to show someone who isn’t a candidate and will not be a candidate leading all comers, or so he CLAIMS, thus getting the headline he wants. This is a rather meaningless number though.

Either way, among actual and prospective candidates, Sarah Palin is the strongest, and getting stronger. In the presidential vote, out of a long list of 15 candidates [plus “other“] Sarah gets 38% of the vote, with Rick Perry, like Sarah, an undeclared candidate getting 23% of the vote.

Out of actual declared candidates, only Michele Bachmann breaks into double digits with 10% of the vote. Mitt Romney gets a whopping 7% of the vote.

The survey also looks at overall approval. They use a sliding scale 1-7, with 1 being the worst, and 7 being the best or “highly approve.”

Again, Sarah Palin is far and beyond the leader here with 49% rating her a 7 a “highly approve” rating. By contrast, out of potential or announced candidates, Rick Perry comes in second with 25%, and Bachmann 22%. The non-candidate, never will be candidate, Paul Ryan has a 30% “highly approve” rating. So much for Ishmael’s meme du jour.

Hot Air also has a couple of individual match-ups.

The most telling is the Palin/Bachmann contest. In the survey taken over the Fouth of July weekend it was Palin 52.18% Bachmann 47.82%. Now that folks have had almost a month of watching Bachmann, being Bachmann, the results are quite different. It’s now Palin 62% Bachmann 38%. It seems the more people see of Bachmann, the less inclined they are to support her, at least among Hot Air’s readership, 49% of which call themselves conservative with another 32% calling themselves “very conservative.”

HA also matches Rick Perry up with Tim Pawlenty, with Perry getting 78% over Pawlenty’s 22%. No surprise there.

In a Palin vs Perry match-up Sarah beats Rick 52% to 48% Which is the exact number Sarah was beating Bachmann by at the first of the month. I can’t quite bring myself to call my own governor a “flavor of the month” but once people see Rick Perry in action, and look into his record, look for his numbers to go down, though not as bad as Bachmann’s. [if he actually runs]

As always, straw polls are what they are, and any poll this early is little more than interesting entertainment. But they do show trends, and Sarah Palin has crushed all comers in these Hot Air polls since last November. In fact, her support only gets stronger. Hot Air has taken a leftward lurch, and become more of a GOP establishment house organ, since it’s founder Michelle Malkin sold the blog to the Salem group, but their readers are politically savvy and conservative. They are a very good representation of the base of the Republican Party.

The take away from the latest poll is no one is excited about the current Republican field. It’s very weak and has no one that can rally the troops to fight the Obama regime. None of the current declared candidates can beat Barack Obama. Rick Perry will definitely make a splash should he join the fray, but as people realize he is more of an establishment candidate, Donald Rumsfeld has been advising him, and Karl Rove is downright giddy at the prospect of Perry running, the bloom will come off the rose.

Sarah Palin is the only person who can rally the base and reach out to independents. Her record of governing in Alaska shows she knows how to work with a very diverse group to get incredible things done. As this latest polling shows once again, Sarah Palin has a base of support that would follow her through hell with a bucket of gasoline in each hand if that’s what it took. While it’s likely conservatives will hold their nose and vote for whoever the nominee is, should it not be Sarah, or even Rick Perry, folks will actually get out and campaign, knock doors, make phone calls, and so on, for Sarah Palin!

Before we go further, here are the results:

Ishmael also said this over the Fourth:

Whoever emerges between Perry and Bachmann will have the electoral advantage on Palin, who it appears has serious electoral maneuvering problems even among the base. Palin’s strength is the excitement of her supporters and the high commitment of those supporters to her. Her weakness is, simply, that there won’t be enough of them to carry her through the current field of primary candidates. I wrote back in 2009 that Palin’s most likely role in the 2012 cycle would be as a coronator. I still believe that’s basically right.

Ahh, the old “Sarah Palin should be a cheerleader and drag someone else’s sorry ass across the finish line” ploy. If you are so weak you need a kingmaker to get you through a campaign, you are too weak to be a king. Anyone who can be a kingmaker, can damned sure be the king.[or QUEEN]

It seems not to matter to Ishmael that Palin has convincingly won every poll he’s taken as well. Ishmael requires all participants to include their zip code, and was publishing a nifty map that shows where a candidate’s support came from. It always showed Sarah’s support strong nationwide. This is likely why he no longer publishes the map, since his own research destroys the meme he’s trying to create.

Oh, and back to the cheerleader thing. You know who the cheerleaders are out of this bunch, actual cheerleaders?

Michele Bachman:

Rick Perry:

(THE AGGIELAND)

Rick Perry, far right, in the 1971 Texas A&M yearbook, The Aggieland. This is a photo of the Aggie Yell Leaders.

By contrast, Sarah Palin was point guard and co-captain of her team, and took the team to the state championship, scoring the winning shot. [on a broken foot no less] She’s number 22 in the photo:

Can we finally put this “cheerleader” nonsense to bed? Sarah Palin is a born leader. She successfully led a ball team, a city, and a state. She’s a real winner, and a champion. Winners become champions because they know how to win. Sarah Palin knows exactly how to beat Barack Obama and win the 2012 election. Better still, she has the skill to govern the nation once she gets there.

O’reilly and Krauthammer were trying to hammer it out the other night. Seeing it as a three-way between Perry, Romney and whoever emerges
from a Bachmann/Palin tussle, I don’t know. I don’t think they expect
Palin to go in guns blazing and with huge support. Their caught up in a standard operations mentality but I could be wrong.

SourKraut and the 8 pm’er. Two little elites that just don’t get it. They treated Reagan the exact same way. Like Reagan, Sarah didn’t go to the right schools, or have the right jobs.

Krauthammer worked for Carter and Mondale during the Reagan years, BTW.

Frankly, the 8pm’er has been pissed every since she shut him down when he was trying to interrupt her, like he does all his guests. It’s going to be quite satisfying to see these two old dinosaurs have to call her President Palin!

I’ve heard Palin being advised by pundits to not run, and just “Keep the others on their toes” and be a “King-maker” or “Cheerleader” or “Rally the troops.”

A few months ago, I remember watching a determined woman, standing in a snow storm, at the front lines of the national battle in Wisconsin, surrounded by a loud, hateful ‘rent-a-mob’ – and yet defiantly screaming her commonsense conservative truths over them, often with a smile – sure of ultimate victory of the cause. . . .

Being out front in battle is NOT cheerleading. It is leading.
Sarah Palin 2012

Hey Gary, Good piece, also check out Technopeasant’s analysis on the results thread about 300am, he makes some good observations. Glad to see you doing your own thing, and doing it quite well. The # of comments per post continue to go down at HA as time passes and they become more like RED STATE, but the truely hard-core Palin supporters are still well represented at HA.

Thanks! Very disappointed in Hot Air. Frankly, the blogging has always been adequate at best, but the readers, and their commentary, was what drew me in. Smart people. They’ve managed to run most off. It’s no where near the same place it once was.

The long term polling is excellent work by Patrick, kudos for that. The analysis by Technopeasant, however is STELLAR, and spot-on, eye-opening. P.S., what is with Texas and male cheerleaders for President, or is that just ME.

Yeah, Patrick actually does a good job. His trying to spin the results are what is dishonest. The results, after almost a year, are what they are, no matter how hard he wishes they weren’t!

Technopeasant is quite good. He should be blogging somewhere.

In all fairness, Perry was also a Captain in the Air Force, and flew C-130s [Bush was a fighter pilot] but this “Sarah needs to be a cheerleader” crap gets old, especially since she’s always been the one on the field playing while others cheer her own.

Hey Gary, I’m seeing more and more information coming out about both Perry and Bachmann, like Bachmann working FOR the IRS, intead of just being a tax lawyer, and Perry’s immigration pandering. Looks like Perry is in, if he announces , the pundits will give a big sigh of relief, and say, “well Palin said she wouldn’t run if , blah blah blah. If Palin announces after Perry, I expect the pundits to say, “but-but-but-but she said…she said…so, now we’re DOOMED! I suspect Palin’s announcement will come as a shock! Heh Heh.

A lot of people assume Sarah will sit out of Rick Perry announces, and she will back him. They base this on the fact they actually are friends, and she’s supported him before. That said, they are wishcasting at best, delusional at worst.

Perry is my governor, and I can honestly say he’s not bad. That said, the only reason he keeps winning elections is because the candidates running against him are worse. He’s done a lot of things Texas have fumed over. In 2006 people were ready to lynch him over the Trans-Texas Corridor nonsense. He was lucky, there were a couple of high profile independents running that also took votes away from the democrat’s sacrificial candidate. (a democrat hasn’t won statewide office in decades) Perry only won 39% of the vote.

Bachmann is a mess. I have so much on her that I’m not even posting … yet. Not.Ready.For.Prime.Time.

A lot of the pundits know good and well Sarah will run, they are trying to say she isn’t hoping to depress enthusiasm for her. Good luck with that!